INTRODUCTION TO CAT TOOLS

Ravi Kumar, Managing Director

Allied Modlingua Services Pvt. Ltd.

(ISO 9001:2000 Certified Translation Company)

PRE-CONFERENCE WORKSHOP ON QUALITY STANDARDS,

TERMINOLOGY MANAGEMENT, PROFESSIONAL PRACTICES

AND CAT TOOLS, APRIL 16, 2009, NEW DELHI

A glimpse of Indian Translation Industry

• Translation activities are directly linked to BPO, KPO and IT

outsourcing activities

The Nasscom-Deloitte study on Indian IT Industry: Impacting the

Economy and Society says the IT/ITES industry's contribution to

the country's GDP has increased to a share of 5.2 percent in 2007,

as against 1.2 percent in 1998.

And with a growth of 27 per cent in 2007, in 2008, the Indian ITES

market is set to cross US$ 25.43 billion.

A glimpse of Indian Translation Industry

A glimpse of Indian Translation Industry

• Based on the reports of NASSCOM that India is sharing 5.2% of the ITES market, and according tothe growth pattern depicted by Common Sense Advisory if we take India's share as 5% of the worldmarket, currently Indian language market size may be taken at approx. value of $500 millions whichmay be summed, in terms of activities, as follows:

A glimpse of Indian Translation Industry

• Domestic demands

• Publication industry

• Press and media

• Internet and multi-media

• International demands

• The growing economy of India

• National Translation Mission

Traditional Methodologies

• Very few translators are fully equipped with the expertise in the usage of

technology in the course of their work.

• Most translators still follow the age-old method of first writing on paper,

then typing them out followed by the proof-reading of the document they

have created, which is an elaborately laborious process.

Why Translation Technology

To make life of a translator and his process more simple !

Things that translation technology doesComputer Aided Translation Tools

• Automated Translation

• Terminology Management, and

• Machine Assisted Human Translation (MAHT) or Translator Workbench

Tools

Automated Translation

• Automated Translation (AT) tools are based on advanced

computational linguistic analysis. Translation "engines"

linguistically process source documents to create a translation

"from scratch.".

• AT systems are typically available for a more limited set of

language directions. This is because linguistic rules vary by

language. Additionally there is a need for a sufficiently large core

dictionary for the target language to obtain a minimum level of

accuracy/quality.

Terminology Management

• It provides the translator a means of automatically searching a

terminology database for terms in a document, either by automatically

displaying terms in the translation memory software interface window or

through the use of hot keys to view the entry in the terminology database.

Some programs allow the translator to add new terminology pairs to the

terminology database during the translation.

Machine Assisted Human Translation (MAHT)

• MAHT tools are based on the concept of Translation Memory (TM) and the

automated re-use of previously translated terms and sentences. Almost all

of the commercially available tools today were first developed as in-house

tools used by translation bureaus to support client work. Over the last 2-3

years their popularity with professional translators has grown steadily.

Focus areas of MAHT

Translation Memory

Translator's Workbench

Alignment software

Translation Memory

• Translation memory is the fundamental technology behind MAHT. A

translation memory stores previously translated sentences and allows

them to be reused on a sentence-by-sentence, or portion of a sentence,

basis.

• Some translation memory programs function as standalone environments,

while others function as an add-on or macro to commercially available

word-processing or other business software programs. Add-on programs

allow source documents from other formats, such as desktop publishing

files, spreadsheets, or HTML code, to be handled using the TM program.

Translator's Workbench

In some circles, MAHT systems are referred to as translator workbenches as

most of them contain a variety of features that assist the translator in

processing and managing the project. These can include word count and other

statistics for project sizing and costing, format converters and filters,

alignment tools to create memories from previous translations, and others.

Alignment software

• Alignment programs take completed translations, divide both source and

target texts into segments, and attempt to determine which segments

belong together in order to build a translation memory database with the

content. The resulting TM can then be used for future translations.

How does a CAT tool works?

• There are three main functions:

• A CAT tool breaks texts into segments (sentences or sentence fragments) to be

translated.

• The translation of each segment is saved together with the source text. Source

text and translation will always be treated and presented as a translation units

(TU). You can return to a segment at any time to check the translation. There

are special functions which help to navigate through the text and to find

segments which need to be translated or revised (quality control).

• The main function of a CAT tool is to save the translation units in a database,

called translation memory (TM), so that they can be re-used for any other text,

or even in the same text. Through special "fuzzy search" features the search

functions of CAT tools can also find segments which do not match 100%. This

saves time and effort and helps the translator to use consistent terminology.

CAT TOOL vs. Translator?

• The act of performing spoken language translation is part art, part science.

Most non-translators underestimate the difficulty of the process and often

wonder why it costs so much to get documents translated. Part of the reason

is that good translators must have talent and experience along three

dimensions. The "perfect" translator is a highly knowledgeable and

experienced linguist, is familiar in the culture and idioms of the target

country and has a considerable amount of subject matter expertise in the

industry or area covered in the document. A tall order indeed.

• Therefore no mechanized computer program will ever replace the need for

professional translators. However, with adequate preparation, reasonable

expectations, and by targeting a specific collection of translation

requirements, a high-quality computer program can provide dramatic

benefits to the process.

Why to use CAT TOOLS?

• The using of CAT tools can be significant and impact both quality and

quantity of translation. With TM-based tools, the level of benefit is directly

proportional to the amount of repetition in the document. Therefore long,

technical manuals tend to be good projects for TM.

• TM tools are especially helpful in translating new versions of previously

translated documents. Other benefits include:

• · Better translation consistency across an entire document, especially

valuable when multiple translators are involved,

• · Reduction in total time to translate of up to 50% and more,

• · Reduction in total translation costs of 15-30%,

• · Reduced time-to-market for products being localized,

• · Ability to begin translation projects before source documents have

been frozen,

• · Can act as a focal point for quality assurance process and ISO9000

certification.

Known available products

Name of product Average Price

SDL Trados INR 30,000

Deja Vu INR 30,000

Wordfast INR 18,000

Heartsome Suite INR 9,900

Suggestions

• Always get integrated with the new technology

• Use CAT tools

• Choose them after having gone for a trail use

Thank you !

Ravi Kumar

Managing Director

Allied Modlingua Services Pvt. Ltd

(ISO 9001:2000 Certified Company)

K-5/B, Lower Ground Floor, Kalkaji,

New Delhi –110019, India

Tel: +91-11-26291676 Telefax: +91-11-41675530

E-mail: info@alliedmodlingua.com Web: www.alliedmodlingua.com